The List: 22 Mar 1996 (Issue 275)

Discarding a closetful of spangle—clad outfits, Julian Clary is beginning to take the funny business seriously. He tells Alastair Mabbott why.

5 this the interview,’ he asks. ‘or are you just making small talk?’ Ooh. That’s Julian Clary for you, leaving you off-balance and unsure whether he’s simply made a puzzled enquiry or delivered one of his patent put-downs.

Clary is on the road again with a new stage Show, Bare-Faced Cheek In A Lycra-Free Zone. this time with a lower-key. more ‘evening with’- type vibe than the extravaganzas of yore. in it he raps about his dog (the legendary Fanny), his cat, his love life and his childhood, and treats the audience to a little slide show of the embryonic star in various stages of pre- celebrity development.

‘I haven’t revolved the whole show around changing from one costume into another,’ he says. ‘lt’s a more intimate kind of show, so it didn’t seem

‘The mechanics of changing eighteen times was starting to rule the whole act. Really, what I like Is lust standing there chatting to the punters.’

appropriate to be dressed up to the nines like that, and also the mechanics . of changing eighteen times was starting to rule the whole act. Really, what I like is just standing there chatting to the punters.’

And that is, of course, what he was put on this earth to do. When the Great Scorer checks against Julian Clary’s name, it won’t be his role in Carry On it Columbus that’s the decider, nor the rather limp one-off Desperately Seeking Roger, nor even the sporadically amusing sitcom Terry And Julian. No, it’s live and direct